Steve Walsh: Everton hire Leicester City talent spotter

Everton hired Leicester head of recruitment Steve Walsh as their new director of football on Thursday in a bid to revitalise the Premier League club's transfer policy.

Walsh was one of the unsung architects of Leicester's shock Premier League title triumph last season and Everton made him their number one choice to work with new boss Ronald Koeman at Goodison Park.

The 51-year-old is credited with recommending Leicester's cut-price signings of Jamie Vardy, N'Golo Kante and Riyad Mahrez, who all proved substantial bargains as they played key roles in the team's transformation from 5,000-1 outsiders to English champions under boss Claudio Ranieri.

Walsh, who also served a Ranieri's joint assistant manager, will start work at Everton immediately after Leicester agreed to let him leave the King Power Stadium following several days of negotiations.

Having previously held positions at Bury, Chester and Chelsea, Walsh has been lured to Everton by the promise of rebuilding the underachieving team with the help of major financial backing from new majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri.

"I'm proud and privileged to become director of football at such a fantastic and historic club," Walsh told Everton's website.

"With a new manager and a new major shareholder, it feels very much like a new era here at Everton and that potential is what is most exciting.

"I know the club well, my roots are in the north west and my brother, Mickey, was an Everton player in the Bob Latchford era and always proud of that fact.

"I also did my initial teacher training at Liverpool Hope University many years ago. I'm genuinely excited to be here at the club and very much looking forward to getting down to work."

Koeman added: "It's really good for the club to have someone in Steve who has shown his quality in his job at a number of clubs over many years. That's the experience and quality he will bring to us at a good time in the season.

"He has a great deal of knowledge about building for the long-term and the magnificent work he did at Leicester on top of the job he did at Chelsea makes us excited to have him here at Everton."